Innocent as Sin

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Despite the adrenaline spiking through Rand’s blood, he met Bertone’s eyes calmly. Rand had wondered for five years how good a look the Siberian had gotten through his sniper’s scope, if he’d seen the face of the man he’d murdered—the face of the man’s identical twin.

  It was why Rand had refused to shave or cut his hair short. Five years ago both he and his twin had been bare-cheeked and military-clipped.

  Bertone stared for several seconds, pale eyes narrowed. Then he looked back at the painting. “Very nice. Quite good, actually. But you should get back to work if you want to win my wife’s little contest. Time is running out.”

  Rand forced himself to smile. Obviously the sniper’s scope hadn’t been as clear as the camera lens. Or the cheek fur was a good enough disguise.

  Or Bertone had killed so many men he didn’t remember all the faces.

  “Glad you like the painting,” Rand said easily, “because I’m just plain staggered by the subject.”

  Kayla suspected he was telling only the polite half of the truth. It was a social skill she was still working hard to acquire.

  “Is my employee distracting you?” Bertone asked, glancing at Kayla. “I can have her removed.”

  “Not on my account,” Rand said. “She’s a savage critic and I’m a closet masochist. Perfect match.”

  “Then I will leave you to your pain and pleasure,” Bertone said. He looked at Kayla. “Until after the contest, ma petite.”

  Rand watched his brother’s murderer walk away. When he glanced at Kayla, her face was pale.

  “That was a pleasant little chat,” he said.

  She looked at him in disbelief.

  “Irony,” he said quickly. “You look like you just stepped on a snake. If I heard what I think I heard, you can haul him up on sexual harassment charges.”

  She made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and not quite a curse. “Waste of time. Thousands of women would line up to be harassed by him.”

  “You aren’t one of them.”

  “So does that make me picky or stupid?”

  “You’re a long way from stupid. May I call you Kayla?”

  “Anything but ma petite.”

  “Okay, beautiful.”

  She surprised both of them by laughing. “Thanks, handsome. I was feeling…smudged.”

  Rand reached out to touch her cheek, saw his paint-spattered fingers, and wiped them on his jeans. Kayla Shaw was a little too attractive and maybe a lot too vulnerable.

  But she was the tool he’d been given to use.

  20

  Castillo del Cielo

  Saturday

  6:10 P.M. MST

  From the corner of his eyes Rand saw that Bertone had finally stopped circulating. Now he was making nice with the people standing near his wife.

  “Okay,” Rand said, sticking a brush in a jar of turpentine. “Take me to my hostess.”

  “You’re done?” Kayla asked, startled.

  Close enough for this farce. But all he said aloud was, “It’s a field study. Any rough edges are looked at as virtues, not flaws.”

  “And if you schmooze the hostess enough—”

  “Yeah,” he interrupted. “She might forgive the flaws. So introduce me to her.”

  Kayla hesitated.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’m trying to decide whether your honesty is appalling or appealing.”

  Rand gave her a smile that was all sharp edges. “Think about it while I talk to her.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a camera.

  “What’s that for?” Kayla asked.

  “I’m hoping to do a portrait of Elena Bertone, Arizona art maven. Sort of a companion to the field study.”

  “You really are trying to flatter your way into winning, aren’t you?”

  Rand had a momentary flashback of Reed’s dying eyes. “Whatever works.”

  “Appalling.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve decided. Your honesty is appalling.”

  “So is starving. Unlike Renaissance Italy, America doesn’t have patrons to support the purity of an artist’s soul. Rat-infested garrets are overrated.”

  “Why don’t you try cutting off your ear?” Kayla asked coolly. “That seemed to put van Gogh on the fast track.”

  “Do you really think I’d look better that way? If so, I’d consider it.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “You’re maddening.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “You mean you’d cut off your ear if I told you to?”

  “No, I said I’d consider it. What do you think?”

  Not knowing whether to throw up her hands or laugh, Kayla looked first at Rand’s left ear and then at his right. “Leave them be. They’re a decent enough pair.”

  His glance dropped from her eyes to her lips and all the way to her toes. “You have a decent pair, too,” he said.

  “You’re outrageous.”

  “I compliment your eyes and you call me outrageous?”

  She opened her mouth.

  He looked hopeful.

  “Right,” she said. “I’m taking you to Elena.”

  Rand would rather have stayed with Kayla, but staying wouldn’t get the job done. Automatically he checked his camera again, making certain the memory stick was secure, the lens clean, and his fingers nowhere near the USB outlet.

  “Ready to go,” he said, taking Kayla’s arm.

  Kayla looked over to where Elena laughed and drank champagne with several politicians. Then she saw Bertone. “Don’t point that camera at your host.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. He’d break the lens.”

  “I mean it,” she said quickly. “He goes postal if someone tries to take his picture. He nearly ripped the face off a photographer at a Christmas fund-raiser. Then he exposed the film and gave the photographer a thousand for the insult.”

  Rand didn’t doubt it. “No problem. I’ll be very careful to keep this pointed away from him.”

  At exactly ninety degrees.

  Kayla led Rand through the packed crowds on the patio to a beautifully landscaped fountain area that was discreetly roped off as a VIP reception area. Rand looked around, sizing up the backdrop.

  The last rays of the sun sparkled on the three-tiered waterfall and on the trays of champagne glasses filled with golden wine. Elena Bertone, perfectly turned out and ravishing in a lime-green suit that fit her lush body like a silk stocking, was chatting and laughing with a circle of men and the few women brave enough to compete with an international beauty queen.

  Behind Elena and to one side, Andre Bertone stood smoking a fat hand-rolled cigar. He was listening to a balding suit who might have been a lawyer or a political aide. Or both.

  Elena was an accomplished actress, which made her a fine hostess. She was animated, vibrant, gracious. She could carry on three conversations at once and still be fully aware of everything going on outside her inner circle. When she saw Kayla approaching, Elena smoothly left the group she was with and walked toward her banker.

  “What is it?” Elena asked.

  “Elena, this is Rand McCree, one of your artists. He’d like to do a quick portrait of you to go with his canvas of the beautiful home you designed. Rand, Mrs. Bertone.”

  “A pleasure,” Rand said.

  And wished it was.

  Elena inspected him from boots to hairline and liked what she saw in between. She flashed her perfect smile as she offered her hand.

  “I know how much in demand you are,” Rand said as he took her elegant hand and shook it once, formally. “If I could just snap a couple of pictures, profile and full face, I can download them to my computer and paint from them.”

  Elena glanced in the direction of her husband, who either hadn’t noticed the good-looking artist approach her or didn’t care.

  “I told Rand that Mr. Bertone dislikes being photographed,” Kayla said. “He’ll make certain that your husband’s privacy isn’t invaded.”

>   Rand made it a point to turn his shoulder toward Bertone as he asked Elena, “Would you mind giving me a few moments?”

  Elena checked the nearby people. All of them were engaged, no one was looking lost, and the staff was circulating with an endless, expensive river of champagne and canapés.

  “Artists call this time of day sweet light,” Rand said. “It only lasts a few moments. It makes your skin glow like amber.”

  “You flatter me.”

  “The camera won’t lie, Mrs. Bertone. You glow.” It was the truth, but that didn’t make Rand like himself any better.

  Get over it. You’d do a lot worse than suck up to a murderer’s wife to get your hands on Reed’s killer.

  Kayla listened to the flattery and wanted to hurl, even though what Rand said was accurate—probably because of it. Elena did look like a goddess in the slanting light.

  But does he have to drool?

  He’s an artist. Of course he admires beauty.

  Elena touched Rand’s shoulder, felt strength, and smiled. “Kayla, be a dear and tell Andre what’s going on so he won’t worry. I don’t want another scene like the one at the Christmas fund-raiser.”

  Kayla wanted to point out that Rand couldn’t take a photo while the subject was rubbing up against him. Instead, she turned sharply and walked the ten feet to Bertone.

  With the speed of a professional photographer, Rand took a few insurance shots of the lovely Elena. She posed and projected for the camera like the model and actress she had once been.

  “You’re a natural,” he said, adjusting focus and depth of field. “The camera loves you.”

  And vice versa.

  But Rand wasn’t going to bite the hand that was allowing him to line up Andre Bertone in the second lens.

  “You could have made millions with that face and those gorgeous cat eyes,” Rand said, working quickly through the major lens. “Now, just a few more with the fountain in the backdrop and the light on your face.”

  “Do I really want that?” she asked. “Women over twenty run like Andre if a cameraman catches them in sunlight.”

  “You have nothing to worry about,” Rand said. “Now let me try a couple from this side.”

  He switched position, carefully keeping his primary lens aimed at Elena and getting a perfect full-face shot of Andre Bertone with his hidden lens. Bertone was watching him intently, alert for the instant the camera swung his way.

  Rand held the camera up for long seconds, appearing to adjust the focusing ring, but actually holding down the second shutter release on the hidden lens. By the time he lowered the camera, he had twenty separate photos of Andre Bertone on his memory stick.

  “Thanks so much for your indulgence, Mrs. Bertone,” Rand said. “I’ll try to do your beauty justice, but oils are a poor substitute for skin that glows like yours.”

  Elena’s laugh was soft and sexy. “You’re a brash rascal, aren’t you?”

  “You have no idea,” Rand said, flashing his teeth. “How else would an artist get away with asking thousands of dollars for thirty dollars’ worth of paint and canvas?”

  Before he looked toward Kayla—and Bertone—Rand lowered the camera, capped the visible lens, and pointed it at the ground like it was the muzzle of a pistol. He sensed Bertone watching every motion until the camera vanished inside the backpack once more.

  Only then did Rand glance up to Kayla.

  Bertone was still staring at him.

  For an instant Rand was afraid that Bertone had finally recognized him. Then Bertone nodded, his head moving more than an inch but less than two. He went back to his conversation.

  Rand casually waved his thanks to Kayla and headed back to his easel. As he walked, he put one of the earbuds back in.

  “Got it. Twenty times.”

  “Sounds like you damn near got Elena in the sheets, you silver-tongued devil.”

  Rand scratched his shirt over the microphone head, making Faroe’s ears ring.

  21

  Castillo del Cielo

  Saturday

  6:45 P.M. MST

  Reluctantly Kayla approached the broad flagstone terrace that stepped down to the gardens, forming a natural stage. Three canvases were set up along one side. Three artists waited to see who got the big check and who got a fiscal pat on the head.

  Deliberately Kayla didn’t look at Reed. The fact that his canvas was hands down the best of the lot just made her angrier.

  That doesn’t mean he’ll win. What do I know about art?

  The only good news was that Andre Bertone had vanished. The terrace was blazing with photographers’ lights. The awarding of the checks would be recorded for the pages of the local papers and the glossy lifestyle magazines that catered to Phoenix socialites.

  Kayla took her place a few steps out of the spotlight. With every breath of wind, the ridiculously large presentation checks she clutched threatened to pull her off balance. At center stage Elena announced the Fast Draw winners.

  Rand McCree came in third.

  Arizona artists came in first and second.

  Elena wasn’t stupid. She understood her audience very well, and the need to flatter local pride.

  Kayla didn’t know which disgusted her more—Elena’s socially correct choices, Rand’s unblushing use of flattery to get ahead, or the recognition that Kayla herself did something similar every time she dealt with clients she didn’t particularly like.

  I’m not as bad as Rand or Elena.

  Not as successful, either.

  With a muttered word she shifted the awkward checks under one arm and grabbed champagne from a passing tray to toast the winners. If nothing else, maybe the alcohol would take the bitter taste out of her mouth. As she took several fast swallows, she was honest enough to admit that she was attracted to Rand and disgusted enough to wish she wasn’t. He was a charmer and a user.

  She was glad he came in third.

  Yeah. Like I’m little Ms. Perfection. I’d love to have him looking at me the way he does Elena.

  But it would take more than a makeover at the local Nordstrom to have that happen.

  Be grateful. I’ve got enough trouble without tripping over that handsome artist’s big feet.

  She finished the champagne in time to set the glass and her purse on a table near the stage, straighten her jacket, and sort the checks she was going to give to Elena.

  With a professional smile rigidly in place, Kayla stepped into the lights. Elena handed out the third-and second-place checks quickly, then lingered to have her picture taken with the first-prize winner.

  “Looks like local interest trumps flattery,” Kayla said under her breath to Rand. “Welcome to political science as practiced on the ground.”

  Rand ignored the brittle edge in her voice and words. “Where do you want to go for dinner?”

  “I’ve lost my appetite.”

  As Kayla stepped back, her heel caught in one of the electrical cables that fed the photographers’ lights. With a catlike movement Rand caught and righted her.

  Holy hell, he’s fast, she thought, startled.

  And strong.

  “I haven’t,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Lost my appetite.”

  She looked into his gray-green eyes and forgot to breathe.

  He wanted her.

  “Dinner is optional,” he said softly, releasing her.

  Before she could think of anything to say, Elena broke away from the winner and stood close to Rand. Very close.

  “I want to commission a larger, more finished portrait of the Castle of Heaven,” Elena said in a husky voice. “Please stay. Once the dancing begins, we can talk.”

  Rand didn’t need an earbud to know what Faroe would say. “You flatter me, Mrs. Bertone.”

  “Elena, please.” She flashed that million-watt smile and put her hand on his bare forearm.

  “Elena.” Rand smiled. “I’ll be glad to stay for the rest of the party.”

  Kayla wo
ndered if she was the only one who noticed the difference in Rand’s eyes when he looked at his hostess. He enjoyed Elena’s beauty, but he didn’t want her.

  Is he picky or stupid? Because he sure isn’t blind.

  And he sure isn’t stupid.

  Kayla told herself not to be flattered.

  She was anyway.

  Elena squeezed Rand’s arm and glided out to her guests, jeweled sandals flashing in the bright lights.

  “What the hell do I do with this?” Rand asked Kayla, flicking the huge check with a paint-splashed fingernail. “Paper a wall?”

  “Cash it at the issuing bank on Monday.”

  “American Southwest? Where’s that?”

  “Try MapQuest.”

  “I’d rather try you.”

  Kayla stared at him. He meant it.

  Or at least he looked like he did.

  How can I tell what’s true and what’s false in a man who had Elena Bertone eating out of his hand with just an easy smile and some deep-voiced flattery?

  “Aren’t you afraid that Elena will discover her new lapdog is jonesing for another lap?” Kayla asked, irritated and curious at once.

  “Even lapdogs have teeth.” Rand showed her a double row of his. “I just know when to bite and when to shut up and wag.”

  “Wagging draws the better paycheck. But there are more important things than money.”

  “Easy for a banker to say.” Rand spoke through clenched teeth. “You have no idea what’s at stake.” And I’m a fool for caring what she thinks of me. This isn’t about a bonehead with a boner.

  This is about Reed.

  Kayla looked at her wristwatch. Almost seven. She picked up the purse she’d left on a table next to the stage. “See you around.”

  “What about dinner?”

  “Enjoy it. I’m busy.”

  She walked off and didn’t look back.

  Grimly Rand shouldered his backpack, screwed in an earbud, and listened to Faroe’s laughter.

  “Relax,” Faroe’s voice whispered. “They only spit like that when they’re interested in a man.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Jimmy will bump into you at your car. Literally. Pass him the memory stick.”